5 1/2 years after gruesome murder, 20-year-old could get day parole

On the lawn in front of Heart Lake Secondary School, Debbie Levack tenderly places new peach and white roses in the vase by the lilac tree planted in memory of her murdered son.

"Eric would have turned 20 on Dec. 13," she says softly in the autumn chill, her sad-eyed husband George at her side. "We're going to miss so much. I'll never see him graduate from college or get married. I'll never have his grandchildren.

"But," she says with such pained bewilderment, "his killer could get day parole this month."

Just five and a half years have passed since her 14-year-old was lured to a grove behind this school by a classmate who yearned to get out of his strict home and get sent to "juvey."

Years of pain and numbness since Justin Morton tricked her son and placed a belt around his neck, tightening it until Eric choked to death, and then coolly returned to art class, bragging to his friends of what he'd done.

It was April Fool's Day, 2003. And the joke has been on Levack and her family ever since.

This Thursday they must return to court once more to learn whether Morton, now 20 himself, will finally be transferred to adult prison from the Syl Apps youth detention centre in Oakville.

"He should have gone straight into an adult penitentiary when he turned 18," insists Eric's dad. "I understand that the correctional system is for rehabilitation, but there also has to be punishment for your actions. There should be consequences."

Instead, there's easy time.

Their son's 14-year-old killer was the first in Canada charged with murder under the new Youth Criminal Justice Act that had come in force just that day. Replacing the much reviled Young Offenders' Act, there had been high hopes that the new law would be tougher on teen murderers. The Levacks, though, would find that the system still bends backwards for Morton, while their son is hardly remembered at all.

Their boy's killer pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced as an adult to the maximum under the new law -- life imprisonment. But of course, it's not really life at all. Instead of having to wait 25 years for his chance at parole, Morton can apply in just seven.

In the meantime, he has had his wish fulfilled -- he has been in "juvey" ever since the murder. "Jail is just free room and board," Morton told one friend at the time. "Killing," he told another, "was better than going home."

But now Morton is 20 and his time in a youth facility is finally up.

The Levacks had always assumed that their son's killer would be transferred to adult prison once he turned 18 so they were shocked when they got notice in the summer that a hearing would be held about his leaving Syl Apps. There have been countless delays and hearings since -- days they've had to take off work -- with the judge insisting the matter be finally heard this week.

"It's frustrating," Eric's mom says of having to face the cold killer over and over again. "It makes me sick."

To this day, Morton has never expressed any remorse to them about the horrific crime he had carefully planned for months.

Initially, he hoped to go straight to jail by slashing someone's throat with a switchblade. But dreading blood, he opted to use a belt as a ligature instead.

In the month before the murder, Morton earmarked three other boys for death before choosing Eric because he found him "annoying."

In his police confession video, he told the detective that as Eric fought for his last breaths, he thought to himself, "you deserve it."

"It doesn't really bother me," the killer said, showing the same chilling absence of emotion the Levacks have seen in court ever since. "The only thing that bothers me is ... no, not really ... the look on his face ... it was pretty gross."

He almost managed to be sentenced as a youth -- which would have carried just a maximum 10-year sentence -- until court heard that he still had homicidal fantasies, thought of killing other inmates and derived a "sense of strength and omnipotence" from killing Eric.

They also heard that while awaiting trial at Syl Apps youth centre, the self-confessed white supremacist was downloading pornographic photos of women who were "pained, shocked or being scared."

This is the young killer eligible for full parole in just under 18 months.

The Levacks don't know what will happen this week, whether Morton will fight a move to adult prison and ask for a halfway house or day parole instead. They know only that they must be there, and do everything they can to remind the court of the young victim everyone has seemed to forget.

"The sad thing is that it's all about Justin Morton; they never mention Eric's name any more, never," his mom says.

"If they release him on day parole, I don't know how I'll survive that. I don't think the community is ready for Justin Morton."

Police photos taken the day Morton turned himself in show a childish imitation of a jailhouse tattoo he had scrawled on his arm: "Do the crime," it said, "pay the time."

It's a simple concept that even a twisted teen killer understood. The Levacks can only pray that the justice system will as well.